Hatters boss not booking his holidays just yet

Mike Simmonds

Hatters boss Nathan Jones isn’t booking his holidays yet after Luton moved to within three points of the play-offs with victory at Leyton Orient last weekend.

When Jones took over at Kenilworth Road, Town looked like they had little chance of prolonging their season, trailing the top seven by nine points, but victory over struggling Crawley Town on Saturday could remarkably see Town level on points with the play-off places.

“I’m not booking my holidays in May, not doing this, not doing that, I’m taking one game as it comes.”

Nathan Jones

However, with the dates for the extra games announced by the league this week, Jones isn’t letting his focus waver, saying: “What we will do is we’ll work this week and then we’ve got a big game at home again.

“We’ll need the crowd again, it’s a cliche but that’s how we’ll do it.

“I’m not booking my holidays in May, not doing this, not doing that, I’m taking one game as it comes, because things change quickly in football.

“But what I asked for them was a momentum. We need to gather a bit of momentum and we’ve done that. Four on the spin, 12 points from 12 is a good little haul.

“I asked them, ‘can we go back to back?’ We did. ‘Can we go away, home?’ And they did.’ Now we said, ‘can we build momentum?’ And that result (beating Orient) gives us momentum.

“We feel we have quality in the side and when opportunities come, we feel we have enough to take it.”

Luton’s fine run of recent form came on the back of a horror show at AFC Wimbledon where they were hammered 4-1, conceding four times in the opening 50 minutes.

Jones is confident that is fully behind them now, continuing: “They’ve given me that reaction from the Wimbledon game and that was a blip, I know now that was a blip, it’s dead and buried now.

“That wasn’t our standard, so they’ve proved that to me and I’m pleased for them, so so pleased.

“We’re not looking at anyone else though, if we get three points I don’t care who it’s against, it’s just about us. We have to build and once we build, that’s all I’m concerned about.”

That view was the same for captain Scott Cuthbert, who when asked about his side closing in on the play-offs, added: “It doesn’t change the way we want to be as we want to keep going.